


Under All That Armor

by ziskandra



Series: Secondary Codex: A Mass Effect Fic Collection [4]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Colonist Shepard, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 17:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11318232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziskandra/pseuds/ziskandra
Summary: Sam would never be the stuff of legends, but when she was with Shepard, she felt like she could be.Shaynor ficlets for tumblr prompts, loosely taking place in the same continuity.





	1. Falling

“Commander?” Samantha asked, fingers poised over her console. Surely she must have misheard what Shepard had said. Head tilted to the side, brow furrowed, she waited for the other woman to clarify.   
  
“I _said_  I waxed the floor, so grab your fluffy socks.” She waved a hand downwards, and Sam followed its movements, which brought her to the realisation that _the Commander wasn’t wearing shoes._ She worked hard to stifle the laughter that bubbled up inside her at the implications. This certainly wasn’t regulation, but if she’d learnt anything during her time aboard the Normandy, it was that Commander Shepard had a relaxed attitude towards _rules._ They had a war to fight, Shepard had said. They had to steal their moments of happiness where they could.

Truth be told, this relationship between them, if she could even use that word, felt like one long stolen moment. The kind of thing that happened to other people; women like Commander Shepard didn’t fall in love with ordinary colony girls like Samantha, no matter how bright or intelligent or downright _competent_  she might be. Shepard was in a league of her own.   
  
(One time, during a quick shared shower, Samantha had expressed her doubts. Shepard had just laughed, though the sound had lacked its usual humour. Leaned in against Sam’s ear so that her words brushed against her skin. _I was an ordinary colony girl, too_.  
  
And Samantha knew, had known about the Commander’s past well before they met, but until that moment, she had not _known_. Sam would never be the stuff of legends, but when she was with Shepard, she felt like she could be.)   
  
And all of that, all of those considerations, and Samantha was falling for Shepard anyway. With the glint in Shepard’s eye, she realised she might be _falling_  in more way that one. Sam kept her tone light when she responded, feigning disinterest. Teasing.  “I thought that only worked with floorboards?” she answered, casting a doubtful look at the Commander’s own fuzzy socks before glancing back up at Shepard’s face. Her eyes were bright with mischief and for a moment, Samantha didn’t see Commander Shepard, the grizzled war hero. She just saw… _her_.   
  
“Well, the cargo hold’s freshly cleaned and we won’t know if we don’t try, will we?” It was Shepard’s personal motto, from the galaxy-saving, world-ending stuff down to the very ordinary minutiae of her being. Samantha laughed.  
  
“Be that as it may, I don’t have any fuzzy socks, I’m afraid.” She hadn’t meant to sound so genuinely put out by the fact, but she found that she _was. “_ I’m rather jealous.”   
  
“I know,” Shepard said, reaching into one of her pockets to retrieve a package. “So I got you these while I was down on the Citadel.”   
  
Sam accepted the present from Shepard’s outstretched hands, knowing what she’d find even before she removed the wrapping. A pair of her fuzzy socks, just for her. The way they felt under her fingertips are the way her heart felt in that moment: soft, warm, protective. “You shouldn’t have. I mean, it was so thoughtful of you–” She forced herself to stop before she started babbling. When words failed other people, they tended to stop coming entirely. Sam had the opposite problem. She did her best to simplify her gratitude. “Thank you.”  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Shepard said. “They were reasonably priced.”  Samantha frowned at the dig against her toothbrush. “Besides,” Shepard continued, “how will we know who’s _really_  better at sock-‘n’-slide if I didn’t even the playing field?”   
  
Samantha wanted to protest, to tell Shepard that it wasn’t even a real game, or if it was, that almost certainly wasn’t its name. But she could never resist a challenge. She gripped her new socks tightly in one fist as she narrowed her eyes.   
  
“You’re on, Commander.” 


	2. Storm

The sky has been growling in the distance for the last half hour: a low, angry sound that increases in volume as the brewing storm grows closer. Sam remembers once, as a kid, asking her parents where thunder came from. Not knowing the exact science behind it, her Dad had laughed her off, telling it was the roar of a frightening monster, one that would eat her alive if she stayed outside past its cautionary cries.  
  
She remembers the way her Mum had laughed, then admonished her father in equal measure. Sam hadn’t believed him, even back then, but she still missed the mystery. 

They all know now that monsters are real.  
  
But monsters, unlike the weather, can be overcome. 

First there had been the Collectors, and then the Reapers. And Commander Shepard had saved them from both.   
  
But not even Shepard could stop the storm.  
  
“Sam,” her mother calls from inside the doorway, “you daft child, are you going to bring the washing in or not?”  
  
She loves her parents, she really does, but part of her can’t wait for this shore leave to be over, to be able to fully throw herself into her work again, to let her mind focus on finding anomalies in data packets, on mysteries to be solved, instead of fixating on everything that’s gone wrong, all the things she should’ve said when she’d had the chance.    
  
“Coming, Mum,” she answers, hefting the laundry basket on one knee, but not before swallowing the lump in her throat.   
  
Shepard might be gone, but she’s everywhere all the same. She’s in the air Samantha breathes, the woman who has given Horizon its second, third chance. 

Thunder claps directly overheard and with a roar the sky splits open, fat heavy raindrops splattering on Samantha’s face, her trembling hands. She looks down, and realises she’d gotten it all wrong.  
  
Shepard _is_  the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Shepard gets better.


	3. Peace

Shepard’s getting real tired of coming back from the dead. This time she doesn’t wake up on a research facility bed but she’s still disappointed that the harsh bright light that fills her eyes isn’t welcoming to her the afterlife. Everything fucking _hurts_ but you know what, she’s used to that, too.  

She wishes that the universe would have just let her rest in peace.

*

“You have a visitor,” the nurse tells her, several months into her recovery.  Shepard raises an eyebrow because she’s never heard that before. Not here, at least; with repairs still underway on the mass relays, travel in the galaxy is anywhere between slow and impossible, depending on where one’s going and where they’re coming from.  

Even Before the Reapers, as Shepard now thinks of that time of her life, visits had usually been from Alliance brass, ushering along her recovery between insincere lines of _don’t push yourself_ and _take all the time you need._ Once upon a time, when the Alliance had asked her to jump, she would’ve asked ‘how high’?

Now, she thinks she’s done enough. The idea of a life free from the auspices of the Alliance terrifies her, but still. The idea of _living_ in general seems ethereal at times. She realises now that she had never expected to survive the war. That’s how it worked, right? The hero always dies in the end.

Except for the times when they _don’t_.

That’s when the door opens and Shepard hears a voice she hasn’t heard in what feels like a lifetime.

_Samantha._

*

There’s a part of Shepard that had never expected to live this long, the part that’s risen to the forefront of her being ever since she watched Mindoir grow smaller and smaller out of the window of the Alliance evac shuttle, knowing she’d never see her home and family again.

She’d thought she’d left behind those parts of herself that hoped for a life outside of war and death and misery, dreams buried with her parents on her homeworld.  

But when she wakes up to the sight of Samantha curled up in the chair by her bedside, feet tucked up beneath her legs, fast asleep, she finds herself wanting all the things they’d talked about just before the final push on Earth. The two dogs, the white picket fence.  

A future.  

*

The wheelchair they release Shepard from hospital in is state-of-the-art, the very pinnacle of mass effect technology. They might have lost the relays at the end of the war, but they’ve done their best with what they had, and the species of the Milky Way are rebuilding, blooming into something stronger, more united, than what had come before.  

“We still need to decide where we want to live,” Samantha demurs, and Shepard bites back a laugh because God knows she’s been useless throughout this whole process. While Sam stresses about whether her hotel accommodations will be satisfactory enough for Shepard, Shepard finds herself not caring about the _where_.  

*

They decide to stay with Sam’s folks for a while, give themselves some time to figure out what they want to do next. It’s been a while since Shepard has found home in anywhere other than a starship, worries that living on a colony again will bring back memories better left forgotten.  

“I can’t wait for you to meet my parents,” Sam tells her. “They’ll love you.“

A smile curves on Shepard’s face. “Can’t say I’ve had anyone say _that_ to me before. I’m assuming this is more than just a routine, ‘here’s the hero who saved your life’ meeting?”

“Oh don’t be a prat,” Sam scolds, “I want them to meet the woman I love.”  

She finds that the old nightmares don’t come.

The only memories that return to the surface are the good ones.  

*

Getting to wake up every morning next to the woman she loves will never lose its novelty. Shepard runs a hand over the swell of Samantha’s hip, rejoices in the adorable way her eyes blink as she’s slowly roused from sleep.  

Everything has worked out perfectly, better than Shepard could’ve ever dreamt.    
There’s just one small thing that’s bothering her. Samantha can see it in her eyes, mouths her name as Shepard hesitantly leans in towards her.  

“Why haven’t you kissed me yet?” Shepard asks, bracing herself for rejection even though it feels ludicrous to anticipate it when they’ve planned for the rest of their lives together.

Samantha laughs, then smiles. Shepard could drown in that smile.

Already has.  

Sam’s fingers trail over the shell of her ear. “They told me not allow you to do anything too _strenuous_ ,” she starts, and Shepard grumbles in return.

“That was months ago.”  

“You’re right,” Sam agrees, eyes full of adoration intermingled with apprehension. “But you can’t blame me for being over-cautious.”  

She presses her lips to Shepard’s then, soft and gentle, like she is precious and fragile and worth protecting.  

Shepard might have saved the galaxy, but Samantha has saved _her_.

*  

It’s been a long time since she’s gone to sleep hoping that she won’t wake up.  

As it turns out, she doesn't have to die in order to find her peace.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hit me up on tumblr @commspecialist for all your shaynor needs! (also send me more prompts because?? love these nerds.)


End file.
